Re: M3UA Notification and Routing Context

Chris,

Chris Benson wrote:             (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:09:42)
> Brian,
> 
> I thought Network Appearance "conditionally" mandated in 
> circumstances such as described early in RFC 4666 ...
>    An example scenario is where an SG appears as an
>    element in multiple separate nationl SS7 networks
>    and the same Signalling Point Code may be reused
>    in different networks.
> Also there's the issue of Network Appearance being used to 
> distinguish between different semantics of Message Priority, 
> Point Code range etc.
> 
> Can all of this be done satisfactorily (in the presence of
> multiple separately administered networks) without Network
> Appearance?

Yes, by routing context.  Routing context is conditional.  NA is
optional in most messages.

> This is not an idle question, as I am currently working
> as an M3UA implementation provider, to assist a customer
> combining NA and different RC value to distinguish between 
> different SGs and SGPs, all from the same 1 ASP in 1 AS.

There used to be a weird case where there could be more than one
NA in an implied AS, and you can still see some text in the RFC
(e.g. under registration request) that alludes to that, but
nobody could describe the management of such a beast and those
that advocated it in the first place had long left the WG.  If
that is the case you are thinking of, then it is really not
"conditional" as that whole weird multiple-NA-implied-AS thing
is completely "optional".  Normally one AS represents one SPMC
in one NA.  In the weird-multiple-NA-implied-AS case, there are
all kinds of things that might be considered conditional, but
as they are not identified by the spec, it is best to leave them
labelled simply "optional", which is true for all described
cases.

--brian


-- 
Brian F. G. Bidulock
[email protected]
http://www.openss7.org/